The present invention relates to self service terminals and in particular to a self service terminal suitable for depositing valuable media such as bank notes, cheques and credit slips.
Some automatic teller machines (ATMs) are equipped with commercial deposit transaction facilities. In a typical ATM commercial deposit transaction, a depositor inserts a magnetic user identification card into a card reader slot on the front panel of the ATM and data encoded on the card is read. Instructions are then displayed on the screen of the ATM and the depositor is requested to enter a personal identification number (PIN) via the ATM keypad. The PIN is verified, usually at a central location remote from the ATM and if determined to be correct, a menu of the various facilities available to the depositor is displayed on the screen. The depositor selects a commercial deposit facility and is requested to input the amount of the deposit via the keypad of the ATM. On confirmation of the deposit amount, the depositor is requested to insert the deposit package into a deposit receptacle on the front panel or adjacent the ATM. The deposit package may consist of a plurality of different types of media such as currency, cheques and debit and credit card slips and should be accompanied by a remittance slip prepared by the depositor on which details of the amount of each type of deposit media, together with the total value of the deposit is specified. A receipt for the deposit transaction is printed and delivered to the depositor through a receipt printer slot in the front panel of the ATM.
At present, the remittance slip which is inserted in the deposit bag or envelope is the only way by which the bank can identify the deposit as being that of a specific depositor during subsequent sorting of the deposited media. If the remittance slip is omitted by the depositor, or becomes separated from the deposited media during sorting, the bank may have considerable difficulties in tracing the deposited media to a particular customer. By matching all the deposits in the receptacle to the details of the depositors which have been processed by the interfacing ATM since the receptacle was last emptied, it may be possible to identify a depositor by a process of elimination. However, the elimination process will be successful only if all other depositors have included a remittance slip with their deposit. If this is not the case, the bank may have to wait until a customer claims ownership of the deposit.
Aside from these problems, there is a general reluctance among many customers to use the deposit facility of an ATM due to the complexity of the transaction and a lack of confidence that the deposited media will be correctly identified as that of the depositor, processed and credited to the appropriate account. Hence, many deposit transactions are still handled by human tellers during normal bank opening hours.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a self service terminal with a deposit facility at which deposit transactions can be carried out by a customer with relative ease and where the customer can have greater confidence that the deposit has been correctly identified and will be correctly processed.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a self-service financial transaction terminal comprising:
user interface means to allow a customer to interact with the terminal during a deposit transaction;
depository means adapted to receive a customer deposit package containing any of a plurality of deposit media; characterized by
deposit detector means within the depository means for reading identification data from the customer deposit package.
In a preferred embodiment, the self-service terminal preferably includes customer identification means for identifying a customer at the terminal during a deposit transaction, prior to receipt of a deposit package by the depository means.
The self service terminal preferably further comprises processing means for reconciling the identification data read from the customer deposit package with the customer identified at the terminal during the deposit transaction.
According to a further aspect of the invention there is provided a deposit package, characterized by identification tag means bearing a code unique to the deposit package, the identification tag means being adapted to cooperate with the deposit detector means of the self-service terminal according to any preceding claim, during a deposit transaction.